


The Spider and the Fly

by Yeah_JSmith



Series: The Art of Moving Forward [3]
Category: Titanic (1997)
Genre: AFAB Jack Dawson, Bisexual Rose DeWitt Bukater, Depression, F/F, F/M, Nonbinary Character, Nonbinary Jack Dawson, POV Jack Dawson, Perceptive Young People, Rose and Jack giving each other exactly what they need, Young Love, because it's Rose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-12
Updated: 2018-06-12
Packaged: 2019-05-21 08:57:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14912372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yeah_JSmith/pseuds/Yeah_JSmith
Summary: Missing moments aboard the RMS Titanic that flesh out Jack, and Jack's crazy relationship with Rose, a little more...plus what exactly happened in that Coupe DeVille.





	The Spider and the Fly

**Author's Note:**

> Some deleted scenes apply. AFAB, NB Jack gives me life.

You like Fabrizio a lot, but sometimes you need quiet. A life of hard work with no ties to any particular place has taught you to value the little moments of solitude when you get them, and this ship...it’s amazing. You’ve worked on ships before, for travel purposes, but nothing so grand as the RMS Titanic. And you’re not working this ship, so you take your spare moment (and your last smoke) outside to watch the stars. Even the area of deck partitioned off for steerage to get some air seems opulent, sturdy wooden benches and that clean scent of something just broken in.

You’ve slept on beds worse than this bench, and under bridges, and the cold doesn’t bother you, although it probably should. Life like yours makes you used to the cold. It’s an old friend at this point, like hunger, even if it starts out hurting every time. You hear frantic breathing and quick footsteps and you almost don’t bother to look – you’ve seen people running to the side preparing to vomit for the past couple of days, and it sounds pretty similar – except there’s an edge to it, like the person’s been crying, so you look and you see _her._

Yeah, you’ve been looking. It’s kind of hard not to, when she’s so goddamn _interesting._ She’s pretty, beautiful even, but beautiful people exist everywhere; it’s the little interactions that have made her a study worth remembering. The set of her mouth when one of her social circle makes the other ladies titter. Her forced, polite smiles at the man whose sole role, it seems, is to tell her to go somewhere else. The way she looks hungrily at the folks in your part of the ship. The way she’s looked at _you_ when you happened to be in her line of sight. She looks at you like she _sees_ you, and it’s a little bit frightening and enticing all at once.

It could be a trick of the light or your romantic heart seeing meaning where there is none. But you’ve had to get good at reading people, just for survival purposes, and you’ve had to get good at knowing when you’re just being a damn fool. In any case, she’s crying, running toward the stern in fine clothes with her hair streaming out behind her, and this can’t be anything good.

You chase her until she reaches the stern, but by the time you’re in range, she’s already dangling off the rail like she’s really gonna do it. These next few seconds are crucial. There’s a transition between desire and determination, and the desire is always very real, but if she were determined she’d already be in the sea. Whatever you say next will have consequences. You should walk away, let things play out, but...you’re involved now. Maybe nobody would _know_ that you let a girl die if you walked away, but you’d know. You’d remember that in somebody’s time of need, you turned your back on them.

So you call out quietly, “Don’t do it.”

And your life takes a turn.

* * *

You prefer her without gloves, but that’s not so unusual. She has beautiful hands, although they aren’t the prettiest you’ve seen. That’s not a statement on her, just a statement on how many hands you’ve looked at. Ever since you were a kid, you’ve been drawing them, fascinated. Hands can mend clothing, can hammer a nail, can take lives or save them. Last night her hand felt good in yours. You want to kiss it, but you’ll probably never get the chance.

There are a million reasons not to talk to this girl, most of them beginning and ending with money. You don’t have any. She’s engaged to some bastard who thinks of her in terms of price; each beautiful thing about her has a number assigned to it and collectively they make her valuable. Men like him, they think they own the world just because they run it. You’re not the smartest person in the world, but you know his type, and you know hers, too. You’ve seen her now. There’s no going back. You follow her up and out onto the deck, aware of the stares on your back and the laughter of your friends. It’s stupid, but you’ve never been known for your wise decisions anyway.

“I’m so glad I was able to find you so quickly,” she says, and you’re pretty sure she’s being genuine. The problem with society folks is that they’ve all been trained from birth to say one thing and mean another, but you’ve seen her at her worst. Why would she lie to you? “I wanted to see you in daylight.”

“I figured you’d wait till dinner to talk to me,” you comment. Not because it’s important to say, but because you like her voice, and it’s something that invites a response.

With a surprising amount of humor for someone who wanted to kill herself just hours ago, she asks, “Mr. Dawson, why would I wait when you’re the most interesting thing on the ship?”

Oh. Wow. That isn’t even high praise, just a sad statement about high society. You’ve been drawing people this whole morning, and you can think of ten off the top of your head who’d be more interesting than you. Not that you’ve ever been allowed into the secret clubs dominated by people like her fiancé, but you can’t imagine people change much; rich people are just better at hiding their humanity cos they can afford to have different priorities. This girl – Miss DeWitt Bukater – isn’t like them, you know that already. The way she carries herself, the look in her eyes, she’s more like the girls back in Greenwich Village, plugging away at resisting a system that is about as useful to women as a two-legged horse. Only, she can’t do it out loud, and it’s killing her. You know the feeling all too well. You don’t even have to _ask_ to know that, although you might ask anyway, if you get the chance. God knows you could have used someone to talk to when you were right there on the edge. You were younger than she is when you took the plunge; you just managed to kill yourself without dying. You cut off your hair, cast off your dresses, and allowed yourself to be who you were regardless of what anyone else tried to say. Without that option, suicide would have looked attractive to you, too.

But you’re not gonna _tell_ her that. “Third-class passenger on a first-class ship, what a novelty.”

“That’s not what I mean. You’re of particular interest to me regardless of the price of your ticket. I’d like to know more about you, if you don’t mind.”

You blow out a breath. If that’s not surprising, you don’t know what is. If anything, you expected her to thank you for saving her life, or tear into you for doing it in the first place. Either would have been just as likely. The way you talked her down was a cheap trick, but it’s the only one that would have worked. When there’s nothing to live for, trying to convince a person that life is worth it doesn’t work. It just makes things worse. Guilt, though...guilt always works. You tied her to your survival. And you’re kind of responsible for her now, seeing as you saved her life and all, so you indulge her. “Can we walk while we talk?”

“Yes, of course.”

She moves in tandem with you, close enough to touch but far enough away that touch can only be deliberate. The air is sharp between you, not only because you’re in the middle of the North Atlantic in spring, but also because there’s something about her that makes you aware of her every move. It goes beyond responsibility. It’s that thing you saw a couple of days ago when you looked up and saw her leaning over the class barrier. Of course you’ve got a crush, who wouldn’t? Not that she could ever see you that way, but you’re sure you’d forgive her anything.

“As you know, I grew up just outside Chippewa Falls,” you begin. “My parents wanted a sweet little girl, but they got me instead. It’s good I was an only child, because I got to learn all sorts of things I wouldn’t have otherwise. Mom taught me how to cook and how to keep house. She taught me how to mend my own clothes and such – they call it women’s work, but a man on his own’s got to know how to do it too – and Dad taught me how to ride and how to fish and how to build stuff.”

Her voice sounds genuinely interested when she asks, “Really? You got to do both?”

“Sure I did. I wanted to. The world’s too interesting to leave off once some invisible barrier crops up. Ended up liking darning socks as much as I liked digging in the dirt.”

“Oh.” You look at her sideways. She looks perplexed, which you expected after a statement like that, but then her lips lift up into a small smile that you _didn’t_ expect. “Mother used to get angry when I came in with dirt on the hem of my dress, so she forbade me to go outside without supervision.”

You rub the back of your neck, painfully aware of the uneven fall of your hair in contrast to her graceful knot of curls. “I guess society girls have certain rules.”

“Yes, well. Enough talk about me. Why don’t – oh, pardon me.” You both step out of the way of a woman with a baby. She looks at it curiously. You look at it and wish you could sit down and draw it, droopy eyes and a sickly red nose. “Tell me about Chippewa Falls, Mr. Dawson.”

“What’s to tell? We didn’t go into town much. I spent most of my time helping out where I could and playing with the neighbor boys, Ralph, Isaac, and Sam. Isaac had a sister who always wanted to play with us, but she was real sick, so it was mostly just the three of us.”

“Did you...enjoy playing with them?”

You’re not sure if she’s asking whether you enjoyed playing with those boys particularly or she’s asking whether you enjoyed having friends, but either one is sad. Just watching her, listening for that sparse commentary on her own life that you can always find in questions, you can tell she’s lonely as hell. “Mostly, yes.”

You never felt at home in your own body, but playing swordfight and hide-and-seek with the neighbors made good use of it in easy ways. It felt good to push yourself, to come home with ripped knees and windswept hair. Sam taught you all to play poker when you were 14. You kissed Isaac once, realized you wished you were kissing his sister Isobel, and it was eleven kinds of awful but at least you don’t hafta _see_ them anymore. You prefer the breathing bowels of a steamer to the stiff hush of a Wisconsin living room any day.

“And you were...happy there?”

You frown in thought. _Were_ you happy there? You weren’t unhappy. Sure, your parents didn’t understand you, but you had friends, and so long as you didn’t put a name to your _oddities_ nobody paid you much mind beyond giving you chores or lessons. School wasn’t much of an issue, and neither was getting all dolled up for church; you just allowed your mother to stuff you into that itchy dress and soft shoes and exchanged amused glances across the aisle with Isobel, the only one who would ever call you Jack on a regular basis. You shrug off the memories. That was a long time ago. “I guess I never really thought about it much. I was alive and healthy, and there was a rope swing for the summer.”

And certain expectations for your future, and Isobel’s delicate features, and that deal with Isaac’s family, and the awful scolding you got from the schoolmaster when you wandered in late with a sketchbook under your arm and charcoal on your cheek, and the feel of a belt on your backside when Dad found out just how much of Isobel you’d drawn during school hours, but mostly things were good. Honestly. There just wasn’t anything left for you when the house burned down, is all. Compared to most, your life was damn near perfect, or would have been, had you not been all torn-up and wobbly inside.

She chews on the inside of her cheek. But for these little tics, every move she makes would seem...scripted, almost dishonest. You could hear her questions coming out of the mouth of any society girl, but she has a tone, a way of moving. She wouldn’t have bothered to seek you out if she wasn’t interested in spending time with you. You’ve been there. You followed Jimmy Cadwallader around for weeks, just because he was the first person to see you as a man without asking questions or feeling sorry for you. Finally, she asks, “What was it like? The rope swing?”

You smile at the memory, and indirectly at her for asking. “It was great. You got going high enough, you could let go and _fly._ Broke my arm twice doing it, but it was only my left arm, so it didn’t slow me down. I’m guessing you never tried a rope swing?”

“I met an aerialist once, if that counts,” she offers.

“It doesn’t.”

“She was lovely. Mother was furious.”

“How did you meet her?”

“I…” She goes a very light shade of pink and shifts her shoulders back, pulling on a face of superiority like an ill-fitting coat. “I got lost. Mademoiselle Dupont kindly escorted me back.”

“Got lost, huh?”

“Yes, I did,” she says defiantly, almost daring you to contradict her.

“What were you doing out without a chaperone?”

She scoffs. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I left the house with a book, intending to read in a little public garden I’d seen from the car the day before, but I misjudged the distance. It was much further away than I had assumed.”

“Ah,” you say with an exaggerated nod, “that makes sense. The ever-sensible Rose DeWitt Bukater would never do something so silly as to run off to a dangerous place without telling anyone where she’s going.”

“Are you mocking me, Mr. Dawson?”

Your heart seems to burst at her narrowed eyes. You get a secret thrill every time she calls you _Mr. Dawson,_ and you think you might fall apart if she calls you Jack. “I would never. I only mock my equals, Miss.”

She laughs quietly, but – you think, anyway – genuinely. Your chest and neck heat when she gives you an unexpectedly seductive look and says, “What a gentleman.”

It has to be a trick of the light. She’s engaged, and you’re nothing special. The only thing you’ve done is provide some respite from whatever it was that drove her to the brink of suicide, and that’s hardly a service. She probably just has a seductive face. She _is_ beautiful, after all. You can’t delude yourself like this. It’s one thing to admire her from afar; it’s far more dangerous to fall halfway in love with a girl like her. It’s not her fault she’s spectacular. “I suppose I can be, on occasion.”

“Tell me about how you found yourself in Europe,” she says, unaware that she’s just shaken your world a bit. “It’s a long way from Wisconsin.”

You smile and force away your reservations, because she’s good company in any case. “Well, I’ve been on my own since I was fifteen…”

* * *

She looks beautiful, regal, even, when she asks you, “And?”

“You wouldn’t have jumped.”

Her face darkens, but you don’t apologize. You don’t think she would have, after all. Stiffly, she asks, “And why would you assume that?”

“Because you don’t want to die,” you reply. “You just don’t think you have anything to live for. But they’re two different things, and I think you’re smart enough to know the difference. Smarter than me, that’s for damn sure.”

“Well, I...I don’t see the difference.” For a small moment, she looks agonized, like she must feel on the inside, but her face smooths out and she puts on what you’re coming to think of as her society smile. “It _is_ nice to hear that finishing school wasn’t wasted on me.”

“Never.”

She sits very still, and then bursts out, “What do you _mean,_ there’s a difference?”

This is what _you_ wish someone had told you all those years ago, even though your life is much better now. “I mean death is a real specific want. Not having anything to live for, though, that can change. It’s true some folks can’t see a difference, because there isn’t a difference for them. For most people, it’s a realization that you hafta create meaning. Cos if you don’t, then there really _won’t_ be a difference.”

“You speak from experience,” she realizes.

“In a way. My choice was to shed my old self and run off. Let life rough me up until I learned how to be happy. I figured out the hard way that it’s easiest when you’ve got somebody there to pull you along when you get stuck.”

“I wish someone would take my hand and pull me along,” she says thoughtfully. “You’re right, I do want to live...but I don’t know _how.”_

What does _that_ mean? How can someone not know how to live? You just...do it. “How does that work?”

“I am alive, but there should be more to life than just having a heartbeat, shouldn’t there? Last night, I _knew_ with every inch of me that death was preferable to this...gnawing emptiness. This lackluster existence in a world I don’t belong in. I know what I consider interesting. What I consider fun, or worthwhile. Most of those things are things I was never allowed to do. Dancing without form, for example, or...I used to sneak out at night and lie down in the garden, pretending the flowers were my friends. Night is overwhelming, you see. I’ve never been able to just stop thinking, but at night, everything’s so much heavier. I couldn’t sleep for all the _noise_ in my head. But outside, I could pretend I was free. My parents weren’t fighting, I wasn’t confined to a few rooms in a house full of servants who weren’t allowed to play with me, and I wasn’t required to deny myself the pleasures of life.”

“Pardon me for saying so, Miss,” you say carefully, because this is new territory for you, “but isn’t that the opposite of what rich people do?”

“Rich men are allowed to indulge,” she acknowledges. Hesitates. Sighs. “Mother says women must be strong so that men can hide their weaknesses inside of us. We must deny ourselves to make things easier for them. Our biggest argument was over education; I want to study at a university, but Mother says it’s useless, since I already have a man to marry. A _man!_ As though my education should have anything to do with marriage! It’s _infuriating!_ Any man who loved me truly would let me read and learn and...and _laugh_ once in a while at something other than his own condescending, self-indulgent humor.”

“That sounds like the problem tied up all nice and tight.” You light and take a drag of your cigarette and offer it to her, half-expecting a quip at your expense. Amazingly, she takes it, and when she exhales it looks like a magic spell. “Why should _a man_ hafta give you permission for anything?”

“I don’t know, but that brings us back to your question. I’ve spent my whole life being told no, I shouldn’t do what I want to do, _have some decorum,_ smile politely, and now I _can’t_ do the things I enjoy. I say no when I mean yes because I’m afraid of some invisible hammer coming down on my head. I want to run, and dance, and be spontaneous. I want to break the rules and be rude to everyone who tries to shut me in a cage. I want to spit right in their faces or...or be completely obscene! And I wish someone would take my hand and pull me along, _make_ me do what I already want to do.”

You go cold. You can’t help it. Maybe she just doesn’t understand the scope of what she’s saying – she’s seventeen, which isn’t all that younger than you, but the cage she’s talking about _has_ kept the dirtiest parts of life away from her – but there’s a line, a line she may not know exists. You’ve seen what happens when that line is crossed. “What if that someone makes you do something you _don’t_ want to do? What if they think it’s something that you want to do, or they think you’ll want it as soon as you try? What if they hurt you?”

“You’re right, of course. It’s selfish and stupid.” Her matter-of-fact tone tells you that she does, in fact, know exactly what you’re talking about. She stands and you follow her over to the rail. “But in my little fantasy, that person would know my mind. They would know when to ask and when to press on. They would listen to what I _say_ before making me do anything; it’s not that I never say what I want, I just don’t have anyone in my life who listens well enough to know. This fantasy person would understand women. Would understand _me.”_

Your heart jumps when she looks at you, because it’s not just a glance, it’s a question. A question you aren’t sure you can answer, especially not feeling the way you do. You’re a selfish sonuvabitch; elsewise you’d be back in Wisconsin, wearing a gingham dress and married to Isaac Switch. But you’re also a sucker for a plea for help, especially if it’s coming directly from the lips of a beautiful girl. Oh, boy, are you in trouble now. “Wouldn’t that be something.”

“Yes, I think it would. Don’t you? Surely _you_ have some insight into a woman’s mind.”

“I’ve worn a dress before,” you blurt suddenly, unable to come up with a single response to her suggestive statement. You immediately want to stuff the words back into your mouth.

“I assumed as much,” she replies with something that resembles a laugh.

“Wait, really?”

“Jack,” she says patiently, “I don’t know when you last looked in the mirror, but you are _far_ too pretty to...have not worn one before.”

You don’t know what she was about to say there, before she changed her mind, but this is the same sort of thing as before. _A person of limited means,_ when she really meant to say _poor person._ You shrug. “It’s a pretty good trick, don’t you think?”

“What’s the trick? Being who you really are in the space of people who don’t like it, or pretending to be someone you’re not so that they don’t say or do anything to hurt you?”

“You don’t…” It’s an awkward thing to talk about. Most people, at this point, go blank and find some reason or other to leave the area. You’ve been chased out of places before. “You don’t mind?”

“I think it’s beautiful. To believe in oneself so much that the only limits are self-imposed.”

“Those are awfully pretty words,” you say, looking at her like you’d look at a model. The dreams in her eyes as she looks out at the water make your hands itch for charcoal, but drawing her like this would be far more intimate than drawing Madame Bijoux.

“Only because nobody says them,” she tells you dismissively. “In a perfect world, nobody would have to. But that’s the same world in which nobody would have to make me enjoy myself. Limits exist to keep us in our place.”

“It’s unfair,” you agree. “Especially on people who aren’t as free to break the rules.”

When she turns to look at you, there’s a heavy, almost solid moment in which you think she’s going to kiss you. You’d let her. You’d kiss back. You’d give her the world, if you could. It’s crazy to think that she has you wrapped around her fingers after only hours of knowing one another, but you’ve never met a person quite like her. She’s wasted on high society. She deserves better. Rose leans forward, drops her gaze to your lips. Your heart pounds like it never has before. You exist together, sharing air – she smells like smoke and salt and floral perfume – and then she pulls back, proper and flushed and looking anywhere but at your face.

Good thing. She’d see you blushing. She doesn’t even have to hold your hand to send you spinning.

“Y-you still haven’t finished telling me about yourself,” she says, obviously trying to seem unaffected.

You clear your throat and try for an easy smile. “What else do you want to know?”

“Tell me what you did after you left Wisconsin. Surely you didn’t go directly to Europe?”

“No, I didn’t,” you say, relieved. This is easier territory. “First I hopped a train and headed west.”

“Of course you did,” she teases.

“I’ll have you know, it’s a _must_ for every American with no home and no prospects.”

“I’ll cede to your experience.” She leans forward. “What did you do next? Once you got off the train?”

“Well, after that, I worked on a squid boat in Monterey, then I went down to Los Angeles to the pier in Santa Monica and started doing portraits there for ten cents apiece.”

* * *

“Are you sure I can just borrow your son’s suit,” you ask for the second time, because you’re good at faking it, but you’re never unaware of how folks look at you.

“Larry isn’t using it,” says Mrs. Brown with humor. “I doubt he even noticed it was missing when I accidentally took it with me. Don’t worry, Son, nobody’s gonna start a fistfight over a suit.”

You think, privately, that Rose’s fiancé – whatever his name is, Callum or something – right, _Caledon Hockley –_ probably would, if only to see you rumpled enough to turn Rose’s attention away. You know he intends on making an amusement out of you in any case, a sideshow attraction, even. Look at the gutter rat tromping around in a man’s trousers! What a joke! But the joke’s on high society. They’re so empty inside that their condescension is all that’s keeping them alive, probably.

Margaret Brown – Maggie to her peers, Molly to her friends, among which you can apparently count yourself – is perceptive like Rose is perceptive, but you’re not sure what to think of her offer to help you. Any other socialite and you’d think you were being set up as a joke, or else propositioned, but Molly has a way of speaking that makes you think she knows a little something about being an outsider. She’s only spoken to you for ten minutes now, but you recognize the way she says “they” like she isn’t one of them, the way she seems almost condescendingly amused at the pomp and circumstance. With her hand pressed against your shoulder, guiding you eagerly into her rooms in first class, you can believe that she wants you to fit in.

But socialites, they protect each other even when they don’t like each other. If Molly’s protecting Rose by throwing you at her, you can’t imagine how foul Caledon Hockley is. Or maybe this is just part of Hockley’s high society amusement, let the boy make a fool of himself and we can all laugh later.

The joke’s on them, you remind yourself. You may call yourself a man for the sake of convenience, but there’s a part of you that isn’t one, and if you’ve read the situation right, that’s your leg up. If you want to woo Rose properly – and you’re pretty sure you do, as _crazy_ as that would have seemed to you even three days ago – that’s really the only thing you have to offer her, aside from maybe the promise of freedom, but freedom can’t put food in anyone’s stomach.

You stand in the middle of the grandest goddamn suite you’ve ever been in, entirely aware of how much you don’t fit here, while Molly bustles into the bedroom to get her son’s suit. You’re taller than most women, but you’re not exactly the paragon of masculinity, so you can’t quite picture what Larry might look like. Is he skinny like you? Does he have short hair? Long hair? Maybe he’s just smaller, like Fabrizio, rather than effeminate.

“Come on back, Son,” Molly calls, “no use standing there gawking, and I’m not havin’ you change in the sitting room.”

You enter her room hesitantly. You’ve been in women’s rooms before, but this isn’t – you’re not drawing her and you’re not sure what to expect here, and although you do love not knowing what’s going to happen next, usually the surprise is of a more mundane nature. Or at least something you can run away from if necessary. There are only so many places to hide on a ship, even one as big as this. Fortunately, Molly is as good as her word; she’s laid out a fashionable (or so you assume) suit on the bed.

You fidget. She sighs fondly. “Ain’t nothing I haven’t seen before, but I’ll leave the room if you’re shy.”

Right. She...sort of knows, or at least you think she does. You steel yourself and slide your suspenders down your shoulders so that you can unbutton your shirt. You have another one underneath – you usually do, especially in the cold – but it’s easily removed. You pull off your boots and pants next, and there you are, practically naked but for your undergarments. Next to Molly, you’re hyper-aware of how ratty they are: the bottoms are baggy, and the top needs to be mended. You pull on Larry’s trousers quickly, unreasonably self-conscious, and rush to get everything else on as well.

You fumble with the bowtie – you’ve never worn one before, and you have no idea how to _tie_ the stupid thing – and Molly clucks once before deciding to help you. You wonder why anyone would put themselves through all this ridiculous ceremony. Then you remember what Rose must be wearing under those dresses and think you’ve got it easy.

“We’ve got to do something about that hair,” she tells you.

“I have petroleum jelly down in my bag, but-”

“No, honey, I have some pommade à la rose for ya. Just slick it back and it’ll hold for a few hours at least.”

She hands over a crystal jar full of the nicest hair jelly you’ve ever seen in person. You’ll smell like flowers (like _roses,_ you think, trying not to laugh), but at least you won’t smell like sweat or worse, whatever Caledon Hockley puts in _his_ hair. It clings to your fingers more firmly than your usual Vaseline, but it isn’t nearly as encompassing; your hair will probably fall into its usual vaguely messy place once you head back down to steerage, hopefully with Rose on your arm.

Oh, God, you’re really doing this.

“C’mon, honey, wipe your fingers,” Molly says gently, handing you a handkerchief. “And chin up. What’s the worst that can happen?”

 _I ruin Rose’s life,_ you think, but you don’t say it, because it’s stupid. You can’t ruin anybody’s life except your own, especially when you’re just some nobody with a crush. Rose’s choices should be hers – and yes, you got a thrill when you pulled her along by her hand, ignoring her halfhearted attempts to stop you from _teaching her how to spit,_ precisely because you did exactly what she requested of you in a roundabout way. She made her choice and you made it happen. That’s how it’s supposed to work, right?

“I might make Miss DeWitt Bukater look bad in front of your people,” you say instead.

Molly lets out a big chesty laugh. “Oh, Jack, you couldn’t do that kind of damage. You shoulda heard her tear into Bruce Ismay the other day. That girl’s a firebrand with a devil’s tongue.”

You can’t picture someone so demure – at least, when she’s actively monitoring her own mood and behavior – having a “devil’s tongue,” no matter how whip-smart she might be. “Really?”

“Managed to insult his intelligence, his manhood, and his philosophy with just a couple of sentences,” Molly confirms with a conspiratorial wink. You swallow heavily at the blurry image of Rose sweetly eviscerating some fussy upper-class idiot. “Now come on, let’s get this jacket on you. Gossip is all well and good, but not when your carriage has to turn back into a pumpkin at the end of the night.”

As Molly puts the lid back on the jar and moves away to store the jelly in a drawer, you pull on the suit jacket and study yourself in the mirror. You look...different. Not different enough to be unrecognizable, at least _you_ don’t think so, but different enough to fit in with Rose’s people, in appearance if not in temperament or practice. The jacket itself is a tiny bit too small, which surprises you; if anything, you’d have thought it would be too big. It’s hardly enough to notice, though, and you’re not worried about tearing the seams. The shoes, you know, will be far too big, but that’s generally how you wear them anyway. It comes in handy when you have to layer your socks.

Not tonight, though. Tonight, you look like a man who deserves a woman like Rose. After getting to know her a little better, you doubt that she cares about the way you look personally, but maybe – _maybe –_ if other folks see it, if you can fool the rest of her people, then she won’t be made to feel bad about being seen with you more often.

* * *

“Tell us of the accommodations in steerage, Mr. Dawson,” Rose says mockingly, a slightly drunken sparkle in her eyes. Her hand is tightly interwoven with yours, and not – you hope – because she needs help staying upright. She didn’t drink enough for that. “A damn sight better than the accommodations in first class! Oh, Jack, I’ve never felt like this before! Your people are _brilliant!_ That was living art!”

“Motion like that is a little harder to draw than a mother and child,” you reply, amused at her enthusiasm. You don’t bother to correct her romantic notions, because you suspect she knows that it’s not all dancing and cheap ale. You said in front of her entire table that you’ve slept under a bridge, and she’s too smart to not understand the implications therein.

She waves her hand, batting away your words like smoke. “Not that kind of art. It was poetry. Robert Browning, though, not Robert Burns. Maybe Elizabeth Barrett. Where are my _shoes?”_

“I have no idea,” you confess.

Her expression darkens, but only by one degree. “No one will notice if I never see them again. Let’s hope that whoever has them will put them to good use.”

Oh, but she’s breathtaking. High society doesn’t deserve such a treasure. Not that you _do,_ but from an objective, analytical standpoint, the perspective of an artist at work, it’s about what _Rose_ deserves, and she deserves a world that’s alive, a breathing organism, a world without limits and rules and _corsets._ A world in which she can dance without having to take her shoes off. A world in which she only has to say no to things she doesn’t want.

(Her smile is more intoxicating than an entire barrel of Irish cider.)

“I’m glad you enjoyed the party,” you say, squeezing her hand gently. “You certainly charmed little Cora, _Auntie Rose.”_

That was a bit of a surprise, but you think it probably shouldn’t have been. Cora has been possessive of you since you gave her a drawing of a pretty puppy, but Rose charmed the men at the party with her silly feat of strength and alcohol tolerance, and as Rose got progressively more inebriated she also got progressively less stuffy until she was turning Cora in circles like she’d been dancing freely her whole life. There was a point at which the three of you were hand in hand, skipping in a circle like you were _all_ children, and that was the first time Cora called her Auntie Rose.

It made you burn inside, to hear that coming from Cora’s mouth, knowing that she was Auntie Rose _to your Uncle Jack._ You doubt Rose missed that, but she didn’t say anything to correct the girl. You’re still burning. It’s fire under your skin – _she’s_ fire under your skin – and your blood is pulsing through your veins, a heady pleasure that’s making you reckless. It’s not appropriate to hold her hand like this, to accompany her like this. You don’t give a damn.

“She’s a sweet girl,” Rose tells you. “She’ll be happier than I am when she grows up.”

“You think?”

“I know.” A pause. A naughty, absolutely _mischievous_ grin. “I’m going to tell you something, Jack. I’m not supposed to tell anyone, but I’ve already broken a thousand rules tonight. What’s one more?”

You lean in and murmur, “I won’t tell. I promise.”

“Mademoiselle Dupont kissed me, right on the hand like you did tonight. It was innocent, just a pretty woman being sweet to a lost girl, but I thought I was going to faint! Mother saw it. That’s why she was furious. But I was _smitten,_ Jack. She was all long lines and shoulders. Aerialists have to be strong, you see. But Mother had just told me that we had nothing left, that the future of our family was on _my_ shoulders. I panicked and ran away. She cares so much about _things,_ about _money._ Maybe I’m just too young to understand, like she says, but I don’t see how owning nice things makes anyone happy when the conditions to keep it are so...rigid.”

You blink slowly as the situation truly dawns on you. She hasn’t romanticized poverty at all. She’s bitter that financially, she’s probably worse off than you, but she still isn’t free to be herself. “So you _don’t_ love him, then. Your mother does.”

“She loves his pocketbook.” She snorts, inelegant and unladylike and _perfect._ “Caledon Hockley should be my perfect match. We’re both so empty inside. But he’s shallow and condescending, and he’s ever so pleased with himself for swooping in and saving the tragic beautiful child and her housepoor mother. I’m a decoration to him. Someone who will bear a child or two and pretty up his sitting room in front of his friends. He doesn’t like it when I read because he knows I’m smart, and he doesn’t want me thinking too hard or I might show him up. He’s sweet in his own way. I think he has real affection for me, and he dotes on Mother. But I’m not a wild thing to be tamed, Jack. I’m a person, and I want to be loved. Is that so selfish?”

“It’s not selfish at all.” You stop and tug on her hand gently, urging her to turn and face you. She follows your lead like it’s an extension of your earlier dance. You brush a stray curl from her face with a gentle knuckle. “Someone like you deserves more than a cage. You deserve to fly, Rose.”

Her eyes close and she hums blissfully. This is more than just the alcohol talking, you’re sure of it. She’s not drunk on alcohol, but on _feeling._ On _life._ That’s a kind of intoxication you can’t find everywhere. “I want to fly, more than anything. Like that song.”

“What song?”

“Come, Josephine, in my flying machine-”

“Going up she goes,” you finish with her.

Her eyes open and she grins widely. “That’s the one! Isn’t it a lovely picture?”

“I can’t remember much of it,” you confess.

“Nor can I, but I bet between the two of us we can figure it out.” She begins walking again and you fall into step with her, a natural thing you don’t even need to think about. You’d follow her anywhere. She leads you into song again, a tiny bit off-key and all the more darling for it. “Come, Josephine…”

* * *

You are far less motivated to leave the first-class area as you were to enter it, but there’s nothing here for you; Rose made her choice. It’s a bad one, and you don’t just think so because you all but asked her to choose _you._ Even if she never spoke to you again, she deserves better than _Caledon Hockley_ and the stodgy, sycophantic society that stifles her to the point of _suicide._ Of course, your offer was as selfish as Ruth DeWitt Bukater’s smothering. You want Rose. You want her with you. You want to wrap her laughter around you like a blanket, to carry her smile in your pocket, to wake up with her in the morning, to see her undone. It’s a wretched ache. Last night, when you had her in your arms, it felt like a missing piece returning to you. She knows who you are, _what_ you are, and yet she held your hand and sang with you and held onto you like you were still trying to pull her back onto the ship.

You’ve never been in love before, but you’re pretty sure this is it. Nothing else could be so overwhelming, so all-encompassing.

You weren’t wrong when you said you have nothing to offer her, especially knowing that she has nothing herself. No wonder she wanted to die. It’s already hard enough to have no control over your own life; now she has to shoulder the burden of her family’s legacy, the survival of her mother and her father’s name. You’re not unaware of how these things work; you just think it’s stupid that they work that way. No wonder she’s trying to convince herself to love Cal. She loves her _mother._

Even if you had all the money in the world, there are things you can’t offer her. Children. Good standing. A permanent home. A reputation that Ruth would accept as good enough for her daughter. As you stood there, hat in hand, offering to Rose everything you have and everything you are like the _idiot_ you’re turning out to be, you knew what her answer would be. In the harsh light of day, could her answer be anything else?

But it hurts anyway. It hurts so much you feel as though you’re drowning. When this boat docks, she’ll leave with her mother and Cal, and you’ll leave with Fabrizio. Rose will probably remember you fondly. She might not even laugh when Cal inevitably makes jokes about the stupid steerage girl who could _almost_ pass for a gentleman. But she made her choice. She made her choice, and it wasn’t you. It wasn’t freedom, it wasn’t happiness. She chose her mother, the selfless little nit.

You sigh and drape yourself over the bow of the ship. King of the world? You don’t even have any smokes left. King of nothing, more like. King of heartbreak.

 _You shouldn’t be hung up on her._ She’s always outclassed you in every way. You’ve been watching her for four days, and you’ve only really known her for two. How is it possible to fall for someone so quickly? You didn’t even feel like this about Isobel, and you knew her for _years._ It doesn’t make sense. None of this makes sense. It feels like a great big cosmic joke, finally meeting someone who sees you and accepts you for who you are and being worlds apart anyway.

She won’t be all right. That’s the worst part. You’d rather see her run off with the maid or something than see her martyr herself for the sake of a mother who hardly seems to love her own daughter. At least, you suppose, you won’t _have_ to see it. There’s no room for you in that world. Mailed to the wrong address she may have been, but she has the dubious advantage of seventeen years of molding.

You allow your mind to drift, soaking in the warmth of your borrowed coat. You’ll have to return it, either tonight or tomorrow. Rather, you’ll have to leave it somewhere to be found by responsible parties. But for now, it’s a shield against the bitter Atlantic winds. And suddenly…

“Hello, Jack,” comes her sweet voice from behind you. You turn around, hardly daring to believe she’s really talking to you. Against all reason, she’s _there,_ ungloved hands twisted in each other like an offering. “I changed my mind.”

You should be upset, but you were right: you’d forgive her anything. As you smile, you hope it makes her feel even a fraction of the happiness hers give to you.

* * *

Kissing Rose is like eating sunshine, warm and maybe a little dangerous, and you never want to stop, but she turns in your arms and says, “I want to see you draw.”

“I…” You try to make sense of the sudden shift, because it doesn’t quite feel like one. “Say that again?”

“I want you to come back to the rooms with me,” she says slowly, “and I want to see your full capacity as an artist.”

 _Wow._ There are several ways to take that, but you’re gonna take it at face value, because you don’t think you could bear to have _those_ kinds of expectations dashed. It wouldn’t hurt as much as her dismissal earlier, but coming at the tail end of that, anything would be painful. She doesn’t hafta do anything. She doesn’t owe you anything. It’s on you to keep your own brain from going overboard.

You take a deep breath and say, “Lead the way.”

“Come on.” She grabs your hand, and this time she’s leading you. Her excitement is catching, and you want to kiss her hand again, so you do, and you obtain a beaming smile in return. Catching you off guard, she kisses your hand, too, and tugs you up the stairs and through the class barrier. She looks like a dream in the fading light.

Pushing your luck, you ask, “What made you change your mind?”

“There was a girl,” she replies, and once you’re well into first-class territory, her steps slow. She moves almost warily. You wonder if she’s looking out for unsavory characters...or if you’re the unsavory character other people are looking out for. Either would be amusing. “She was so young, and her mother was scolding her for slouching. I saw myself in that little girl, saw what would become of her. A bored, sad, lonely thing surrounded by empty beauty and I...I can’t do it, Jack. I _can’t._ You were right, it’ll kill me if I try.”

“I know.”

She glances at you, seeming a bit startled, but she blows you away with her next words. “The first time I ever saw you, I never wanted to stop looking. It scared me.”

“What.”

A nervous laugh. “I saw you, the most interesting person I’d ever seen, a person who had no limits. I didn’t know you and I didn’t understand you, but I _saw._ I looked over the railing and my first thought was _she’s beautiful._ And then I looked again and thought _so is he.”_

You resist the urge to pinch yourself. Rose DeWitt Bukater defies logic, defies expectations. She’s a dream come to life. And she just _told_ you that, like it isn’t earth-shattering, like it isn’t a secret guilty pleasure. You squeeze her hand and say, “I didn’t see you quite that early. I only got the whole picture piece by piece.”

“You’re the only person alive who has the whole picture at all. You call _me_ a spoiled brat? You dug that out of me! You’re pushy, you’re demanding-”

“Rose-”

“And you’re _exactly_ what I need,” she finishes, so warm and so sweet. The sudden knot of anxiety eases. “You pushed me the way I asked for. You didn’t scare me half to death flipping tables and demanding that I –”

She stops and so do you. You frown and say, vehemently, “I would _never.”_

“I know that. The point is that you see me.” She steps closer, so that you’re nearly flat against the wall of the corridor. It’s intense, even if it’s not intimate. “I let you see me. I want you to see me. Say you’ll keep looking, Jack. Say you’ll see me. Say you’ll keep pushing me until I’m strong enough to push myself.”

“Rose,” you murmur, unable to help it. Her name is stuck on your lips, painted with red oils and branded on your tongue, the shape of it filling your mouth so perfectly. You dip your head to rest it on her shoulder, your chest so hot and tight you feel as though you might physically burst open. “There’s that fire again. I’ll do as you say. I’ll pull you along and we’ll run until we can’t run anymore.”

Maybe you’re just pretending. Maybe you’re _not._

“Do you promise,” she asks breathlessly.

“I don’t want to see you wither away. I want to see you fly. If that’s what it takes, I’ll do it.” You’re unusually vulnerable here, no barriers in the way, no smoke and mirrors between you. She’s hardly _looking_ at you and you feel naked in a way that you never have before. “You’re a woman who deserves to live in a world that wants her.”

“A world with you in it?”

You laugh. The question is _absurd._ “Do you really have to ask, Rose?”

“Then, Jack...will you walk into my parlor,” she asks, almost impish.

You bite back a grin. Cheeky. “Have you a many curious things to show when I am there?”

She fumbles for the knob of a door. So _that’s_ why you’ve stopped here. “You’ll have to wait and see.”

“The _scandal.”_

You share a tiny laugh, a spark along the powder strung between you, and she gets the door open. By the time you step inside, you’ve got a firm hold on yourself again as she says, “It’s quite proper, I assure you. This is the sitting room...”

* * *

With one arm wrapped around Rose, you ask, “Are you nervous?”

“No,” she says at a whisper, and that makes one of you. You want to be good for her, but – and here, she nearly pulls you out of your body by kissing and nibbling at the tips of your fingers – _you don’t know_ if you’re good or not. Certainly, prior lovers haven’t voiced any complaints. But you never had anyone who felt about you like Rose feels about you, and there’s a pressure to be perfect that you’ve never felt before in your _life._ She pauses, looking up at you. For a moment, you’re sure she can see your questions, but she only says, “Put your hands on me, Jack.”

She wants it, so you do after a moment of hesitation, because her wish is your command. And then you kiss her, because her mouth is a siren’s song; it’s new charcoal, a warm coat in December, a steaming pastry through glass, but you’re allowed to take it. As you both lower to the seat, you think this is a highly impractical place to do this, but isn’t that this whole thing in a nutshell? Impractical, inappropriate, half-secret and thrilling.

(When her dress is comically easy to remove, you wonder if she planned this, or if she simply had it in mind.)

You already knew what she looked like. Drawing her was a rare pleasure and quite possibly the best memory you have in your head. Now you get to see what she tastes like, how she sounds unrestrained, unreserved. Her mouth tastes like high-end tobacco and her skin tastes like salt and sweat and boiler smoke. She tastes like _home,_ in all its permutations. You sketch shapes on her skin with your bare fingertips, spirals and lines that would linger had you not wiped your hands clean already, and she sighs into your mouth, “Oh, _Jack.”_

And because she’s Rose, you reply, “Please – Jacqueline. _Please._ Just for now. Just for this.”

“Jacqueline,” she agrees, and you’re flying, because _she doesn’t mind._ She pulls at your suspenders, eager to get into your trousers, and you help – knees going wide, one arm at a time so you don’t fall and hurt her – you unbutton with shaking hands while she tugs at your shirt and reaches out with her neck to nibble your collarbone – you can barely _think –_ she’s impatient to see you, she _wants_ to see you, not just Jack but Jacqueline – she sees _you,_ all of you, her eyes carve deadly, bloody trails in the fabric of your very _being_ – and even with no clothes between you anymore you don’t have enough room to get a proper taste of her, so you begin slow circles with your thumb, looking for the right angle to make her _melt._

Rose is not idle. She puts her mouth to work, teeth and lips acting in tandem at your throat to send ripples through you, one hand going into your hair while the other slides down to copy your movements. She is not shy about it; she is forceful, demanding, and you lose your breath because _she is fire,_ she is light, she is the great inferno promised to sinners like you and you hope you can continue to deserve her.

“I want more of you, Jacqueline,” she says into your ear, her voice honey-smooth and spilling into the part of your brain that stores pleasurable memories. You’ll never escape her now, not that you’d ever want to. You meet her lips again, sipping the air between you before going back for thirds, fourths, fifths, everything and anything she’ll give you. It’s easy enough to slide a finger inside of her, slick as she is from everything else (and _God_ is it amazing, that you can affect her like this), but you keep your thumb going where it is.

Rose reaches up, fingers slick from teasing you, and with a great and beautiful shudder, her hand goes wide as she tries to grip the window. Predictably, it doesn’t work – there’s nothing for her to grab – but she tugs at your hair so hard you see sparks, and all it takes to undo you is the return of her hand to your sex. Next to you, she seems almost composed. She’s supposed to be the inexperienced one, but the way you feel about her makes this the first time you’ve been touched.

“You’re trembling,” she says softly.

“Don’t worry,” you tell her, “I’ll be all right.”

Your kiss is soft but intense until it’s over. She presses another sweet kiss to your brow and holds your cheek to her breast, allowing you to ride out the sensation. You _are_ trembling. You are brand new in her arms. Does she feel the same? Her breath, as ragged as yours, says she probably does. You want to stay here wrapped up in all that she is forever.

Your heart soars when she asks, “Are...are you still Jacqueline right now?”

(Nobody else has ever known you well enough to ask. Nobody else has ever _cared_ enough to learn what you like.)

“I’m always Jacqueline,” you confess, closing your eyes against reality. “I’m just also, usually, Jack, moreso than I am Jacqueline. You can call me what you like. You know who I am, Rose. You know me. You _know_ me.”

“I do. You’re my sweet Jack, no matter what. Man or woman, you’re _you.”_ Sigh of relief. It might just be the sexual release, but you can’t remember ever being this _happy_ before. Very quietly, she asks, “Is there something I should know? Some cue I can look for?”

What treasures she gives you. “It comes and goes. I try not to be, but I’m a bit mercurial. It’s easier to be a man, though, especially because I’m...well, I’m not well-off. A poor man will never suffer the indignities of a poor woman.” You look up at her, but you’re not in a position to meet her eyes, so you close yours again. “Or a rich one, for that matter. I’m a man when it suits me, which is so often that I might as well be one. I don’t mind if you always think of me that way. But it’s...a gift, to know that you aren’t – angry, or disgusted, or – you’re unique, Rose.”

“If you were with me for the rest of our lives,” she informs you, running soft fingers through your hair, “you would never want for affection, no matter what.”

You’re going to drown in her. She’ll be your undoing, you just know it. But you can’t bring yourself to care. You’d fall in love and die a thousand times just to make her smile. But she isn’t cruel; she wouldn’t smile at your pain. Not even if you deserved it.

...Well, maybe if you deserved it. You’ll just have to make sure you live in such a way that you never do.

* * *

In theory, the board could hold you both, but in practice it’s impossible. You can’t get onto it without knocking her off; you’re tired, her life vest is bulky, and there isn’t a lot of time to waste on figuring out optimal weight distribution. Rose could probably do the calculations in her head, the clever thing, but numbers can only take you so far. You’re clumsy and –

Well. There aren’t even any records of Jack Dawson, just vague memories of a girl named Jacqueline who ran away when her parents died. You’re expendable. The thought strikes you like a slap, and you nod to yourself, the beginnings of a bitter smile clawing at the corners of your mouth. You’re expendable, and she isn’t. So you maneuver yourself to the space by her head and cling to her, determined to be present with her as long as you can. Keep her holding on until the boats come back.

(You are going to die. In the water, maybe, or afterward, the hypothermia _will_ kill you. But Rose is going to live, and that’s what matters.)

You keep her talking, keep her hoping. She tells you that she loves you, and you can’t bring yourself to say it back; it would be too much like admitting defeat. You think she knows what this means – what you mean. You will not escape from this. But she’s as bullheaded as she is romantic, so maybe she’s holding out hope. If you close your eyes, you can almost pretend you’ll both survive.

You’ll share a cup of tea, hands overlapping around the hot mug.

 _“Stay awake, Rose,”_ you whisper.

You’ll huddle together under blankets, stealing kisses and holding hands.

 _“S-stay aw-wake, R-rose,”_ you whisper.

You can smell the ocean. You’re in Santa Monica, Rose’s hand in yours, and her smile is so bright. Bright as the sun. Her eyes are wide open in delight. Later, you’re going to make love under the stars. Or is that now? It’s now, isn’t it? Or maybe it’s tomorrow. Yes, that sounds right. You have the strange thought that you both ought to stay awake, but it’s been a long day of riding and walking in the surf. Laughter and love and new experiences. Sleep is what you really need. She’ll be there in the morning. You’ll wake up tangled in each other. But first…

_Sleep._

**Author's Note:**

> I write when I'm drunk, and I'm _suuuuuuper_ drunk. Fuckin sue me.


End file.
